This Country Belongs To The People

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

by

Abby Zimet, Further columnist

 4 Comments

In need of a reprieve from the El Paso derangement - journalists attacked, babies executed, teachers as losers, fictional numbers, a Green New Deal that will ban cows and end “a little thing called air travel” - let us honor Abraham Lincoln, born on this day in 1809. So was Charles Darwin, another moral and intellectual giant, but he's happily escaped the fate of our idiotpretender comparing himself to him, probably 'cause he's never heard of him. We take enormous solace in Beto and his ilk. 

But we also celebrate the enduring wisdom and self-evident truths of Lincoln, whose prescience in this time and place resonates more than ever. To wit:

"If you want to test a man's character, give him power."

"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

"The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed."

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their Constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."

 

https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/02/12/country-belongs-people-0